EFC Minutes
March 10, 2005
TOPIC #1. Spring Meeting Times
Dorothy and Sarah need to provide me (Jim) with the times they CANNOT meet in Spring
Quarter, so we can set up a meeting time. ASAP, please!
TOPIC #2.
We discussed the issue of administrative appointments and the specific issue of Vice-Chair and
Chair appointments. Although proper procedures were followed in the recent appointment of
Vice-Chair Bradley, the EFC was asked by the Dean to reconsider these procedures and did so at
its 3-10-05 meeting.
We identified three procedures for the Chair and Vice-Chair appointment process.
1. Current process, where Vice-Chair becomes Chair, and serves 2 years in each position.
Selection of the Chair, de facto, is done by selecting a Vice Chair. A committee appointed by the
Dean (in this case, the EFC) selects a slate of candidates, the list is given to the Dean, acceptable
candidates to the Chair and Dean from that list are vetted before the faculty, and the Dean selects
from among those. What was unusual about the current appointment process was that only 1 of 4
candidates survived the Dean-Chair vetting. If the current process is followed in the future, we
recommend that the list of candidates provided by the EFC go before the faculty before they are
presented to the Dean for a vote of acceptability.
2. Senior faculty rotate in and out of the Chair on a 2-year basis, whether they are excited about
it or not. This type of rotation makes for some poor 2-year cycles, as faculty who do not want to
serve and/or have no administrative flair are forced to serve. Two years is a short time to come
up to speed on major issues, and almost guarantees a powerless faculty. It may also be in conflict
with the University Handbook, which clearly gives control of selection of the Chair to the Dean.
3. A third process is to create an annually rotating Vice-Chair within the appointment period of a
single Chair (perhaps 3-4 year term). Vice-Chair would be a training position, open to Associate
and Full Professor teaching positions. By rotating the Vice-Chair, leadership training
opportunities are maximized, although this is a less “efficient” model than our current process.
Each year, the Chair outlines major initiatives to the EFC in a letter, the EFC uses this to select a
list of available candidates, the candidates are vetted before the faculty for votes of confirmation,
and selection of the Vice-Chair is made by the Chair (not the Dean). Current Vice-Chairs can
offer themselves for re-nomination. At the time the new Chair is selected, the same process we
now have is followed, except that the list of available candidates is vetted to the faculty before
the list goes to the Dean. Faculty serving as former or current Vice-Chairs are not automatically
put on the EFC list for a new Chair selection, and faculty who did not serve as Vice-Chair are not
excluded from consideration. Serving as Vice-Chair provides leadership experience that should
help the candidate and the faculty make a better choice of the potential new Chair.
4. Other options. There may be some other options to consider, please feel free to add them here.
The 4 members of EFC present at the 3-10-05 meeting preferred the third option, although the
specifics might be stated differently by each of us. We did not have any input from Dorothy or
Sarah (although Dorothy did send an email embodying some of what is now in option 3), and
therefore decided to table any recommendation until we hear from the two of you. We’ll try to
provide a formal advice letter to the Dean in our next meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 11:30 AM.